/lit/ - Literature

I need some advice regarding writing ominous / looming antagonists. I posted a while back about having a villainous protagonist who goes around looting and pillaging, and my first book is set to have the antagonist be the small island lordship he's pillaging and more specifically its ruler. I want there to be an overarching 'big bad' (or good ig?) that gets mentioned by name, though the reader should remain unsure of exactly what it is. It's supposed to be this larger empire that eats up smaller nations, but does so as peacefully as possible. They're fighting some distant war and so are largely absent until the people getting fucked with manage to send an envoy asking for help. Any ideas for how I might do this without explicitly just saying "Oh, there's these big fuckers that are a big threat, but they've fucked off for now so its all good until it isnt."

>>20453395
>>20453412
t. Gardener

>deer skull, wood, detailed
What did nightcaffe mean by this